Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in Postsocialist States (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780299163747)

In Fieldwork Dilemmas ten anthropologists disclose the political and physical dangers inherent in field research. Focusing on former socialist states, they vividly depict the upheavals of everyday life in eastern Euorpe, revealing how their informants and the communities in which they live undergo political and economic dislocations, plummeting living standards, emerging gender inequalities, and ethnic and nationalist violence.

Reports from Armenia, Bulgaria, eastern Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, and Uzbekistan show how fieldworkers struggle to reconcile previous experiences with postsocialist stereotypes about Soviet culture, the West, and the effects of the penetration of capitalism into noncapitalist societies. These fieldwork dilemmas are analyzed by anthropologists who are learning to position themselves professionally and personally in the field under often unstable, unpredictable situations. This volume will interest not only anthropologists but fieldworkers of all kinds, and not only scholars of eastern Europe but all those who study rapid societal changes.

Author: Hermine G. De Soto
ISBN-10: 0299163741
ISBN-13: 9780299163747
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Language: English
Published: 08/31/2000
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.78lbs
Size: 9.06h x 6.06w x 0.62d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 09/01/2000 pg. 218